We study the problem of precluding biological invasions caused by ships transporting internationally traded goods in containers between different regions of the world. Using the long run expected net cost (LRENC) of inspections as the apposite managerial objective, we address the following important question: Given that inspection is a cyclical activity, is the LRENC lower when a port manager’s inspector inspects cargo upon the arrival of a specified number of containers (container policy) or is this LRENC lower when this inspector inspects cargo at fixed points in time (temporal policy)? We construct a queuing theoretic model and show that in an inspection cycle, irrespective of whether the inspection policy choice is made on the basis of an explicit optimization exercise or on the basis of rules of thumb, the container policy is superior to the temporal policy because the container policy results in lower LRENC from inspection activities.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by European Regional Science Association in its series ERSA conference papers with number
ersa05p162.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)